“You touch it,” said I, “and you’ll drop dead on that hearth.”
He pretended not to hear me, but he heard the click of the splendid spring which Messrs. Deane and Adams had put into that early revolver of theirs, and he could not have come down much quicker with my bullet in his spine.
“Now, then,” I said, “what the devil do you mean by shamming deaf and dumb?”
“I niver said I was owt o’ t’ sort,” he whimpered, cowering behind the chair in a sullen ague.
“But you acted it, and I’ve a jolly good
which we followed for the first three miles or more. At length we turned into a narrow lane, with a stiff stone wall on either hand, and this eventually led us past the lights of what appeared to be a large farm; it was really a small hamlet; and now we were nearing our destination. Gates had to be